


Christmas Party

by sullenhearts



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 07:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16806583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullenhearts/pseuds/sullenhearts
Summary: Stiles and Derek have to organise the work Christmas party together. The prompt was that they're sworn enemies, but I didn't quite get to that bit *shrug*





	Christmas Party

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of 24 (ish) days of prompts

Everyone knew that Derek Hale did not DO Christmas. Everyone knew that. His would be the only unadorned desk on the floor, touched by neither tinsel not snow. Everyone knew well enough to leave him alone, although some kindly soul would always leave him a chocolate or a cupcake or a card. These little gifts would disappear, true enough, but no one was ever sure if Derek ate them or threw them straight in the trash, because he never said a word about them. Never a thanks or a complaint. That was pretty much how Derek Hale spent his entire work life. He would wait until the water cooler was empty before he went to refill his stainless steel bottle, and he brought a coffee each morning and didn’t drink another all day. No one disliked him, because he would laugh when someone told a funny story and always put a dollar into any collections for a new baby or something, but no one could say they knew anything him either.

He ate cheese and chutney sandwiches three times a week, and chicken ramen on the other two days. He had started on the most basic of entry level jobs, processing checks that arrived to pay for insurance on computers, tablets, phones. He had worked his way into a telephone job, answering insurance enquiries and dealing with irate customers in a very pleasant manner. He now processed claims, writing letters and calling folks back with good or bad news. He was a team leader; eight people worked under him and they would say he was a fair team leader. He understood about school plays and dentist appointments and times of the month. He would swap shifts if someone was desperate, never seeming to mind an early morning or late night like some team leaders did. He never asked anyone to swap a shift with him, though. 

Some of the girls decided he must go to the gym, reasoning that you couldn’t get a body like that without working out. He didn’t belong to the gym onsite, though, and when you asked one of the boys they’d swear they never saw him at the other gym in town. No one ever really saw him around much. One of the girls said she’d seen his car driving out of town along the north road, and she’d followed him enough to see him turn right on a dirt track. No one really believed her, though, because she was a known liar and besides, there weren’t any houses that far out of town. Derek couldn’t possible live there. They would know, if he did.

Every few months a new girl would join the company and she would spend six weeks trying to sweet talk Derek, flirting with him every opportunity she got, sitting just that little bit too close on his desk, touching his arm as she walked away, offering to bring him some of her mom’s delicious homemade cookies. Derek would talk back politely, smile at the offered gifts, and then…. Nothing. Eventually she would get bored and decide he was “probably gay anyway”, and all the other girls would nod sympathetically and wonder just a little bit more about the enigma that was Derek Hale. 

Then Stiles Stilinski arrived at the company. He had his actual first name on his desk, same as everyone else, but no one was sure how to pronounce it and he introduced himself as Stiles, so everyone stuck with that. He was a few rows away from Derek, and not in his team, but a couple of girls noticed him noticing Derek and decided to speak to him about it. 

“He’s so cute,” one said. 

“Total dreamboat,” said another. 

“I’m pretty sure he’s gay,” Layla said, frowning at her computer screen. She might have been the last one to be rebuffed, no one was sure. 

“No, I don’t think it’s that,” Stiles said, tapping a mechanical pencil against his teeth. “Huh,” he said after a little pause. 

He would jump up whenever Derek went to refill his water. He would stay at his computer at clocking off time until Derek passed his desk, and would then just happen to follow him out of the building. Six weeks before Christmas a snow fell and Stiles made a big show of not having brought a coat and needing a ride, and sure enough the next day he came in with a huge grin on his face and declared that he’d got a ride home with Derek, who was as polite as ever but who didn’t divulge literally anything else about his life.

Fail, said the girls, and went back to their desks and their work, and for a couple weeks no one thought much about Derek Hale. It was coming up to Black Friday and work was busy.

Then on December 1st the floor manager, Chris Argent, a man of even fewer words than Derek if it could be believed, came out of his office and called for Stiles and Derek to come into his office.

There was a low “ooh” in the vicinity and Stiles flipped the bird on his way into the office. 

Barely ten minutes later Derek walked back to his desk via the water cooler, and Stiles sat down at his desk and said, “We have to organise the floor party on Christmas Eve.”

No one really believed that, either. Derek Hale had worked here for eight Christmasses and he’d never so much as attended the floor Christmas party. In fact, he was the person left to answer calls on that last afternoon. Why Chris would decide that now was the time to get him involved, no one was really sure. 

Stiles started taking the same lunch as Derek, an early one, heading to the lunchroom at midday on the dot. He would hurriedly finish whatever call he was on and pick up his lunchbox and skip down the stairs after Derek. Girls who saw them in the lunchroom said they sat together at a small table in the corner and talked in hushed tones. There was a rumor Stiles had a clipboard. Chris’ budget was always one hundred and fifty bucks, no more and no less, to include food and drink and decorations. What, exactly, could Stiles Stilinski do with that money that no one had done before? Salma still spoke of five years ago when young Lydia had been in charge, and had set up a burrito station. “Not particularly festive,” she said, “but there was enough eggnog for everyone to forget that.”

Stiles’ early lunches lasted for two weeks and then he went back to his normal 1pm time. “It’s all under control,” he said. “You all need to have a little faith.”

Which was fine, but there were still ten days to go, and surely not everything could be sorted out already? 

The party was at 3.30pm on Christmas Eve, a fair time for most people, whether you were about to finish or would be here until 8. There was an expectant hush from 3pm, and at 3.15 Stiles and Derek both rose from their desks and grinned at each other over the top of the rows of desks. 

Chris came out of his office. “They asked to use my office,” he said, plugging his laptop into the table on Stiles’ desk. “Figured they couldn’t do any harm.” Other than that he kept tight lipped. 

The blinds were drawn in Chris’ office, a light barely showing through. Every now and then someone would catch sight of a shadow – and was that a tree? Where the hell had they rustled a tree from? 

At 3.30 the door was flung open. Neither Derek nor Stiles appeared, though, and all that was visible was a lot of fog. 

It had to be dry ice, right?

“Come hither,” said an echoey voice from inside the voice. “One at a time.” The voice laughed evilly.

Some of the girls ventured forward. The room was freezing, bedecked with ice and branches of fir trees, their smell leaching out on to the floor itself. Cocktails were served in iced glasses, cold to the touch. The food was something rich and beefy, served over rice, and in silver bowls that glistened with frost. The fog took over the whole floor and licked under the stairwell doors, desperate to be free. A wolf howled. There was Turkish Delight in every flavour imaginable for dessert. Everyone took home a pinecone that glittered and said 2018 on it. 

Afterward no one could really figure out how they’d done it all, but it was for sure – they’d be talking about this one for years.


End file.
